I never had any problem with my classmates, who were nearly all in their 20s. But a couple of teachers wouldn’t take me seriously

I have always been passionate about art, but I had no money, and with 13 children to feed and educate, being an artist wasn’t an option. I was 83 when I finally enrolled at art school. I was born in Barcelona in 1933, three years before the outbreak of the Spanish civil war. My father was a military aide-de-camp to the president of the republic. When the civil war broke out, he was sent to fight on the Aragon front and then became the army commander in Murcia, south-east Spain. After Franco’s victory in 1939, he was tried by a court martial and executed by firing squad.

The Franco regime confiscated my mother’s property. She had to live with her three children in her mother’s house in Zaragoza. Her two sisters and their children also lived with us. The husband of one of my aunts was killed by the republicans, but despite our divided histories, we were a united family. We never talked about the past, nor was there any sense of bitterness.